A dispute is developing between Turkey and the United States that will greatly influence the course of events in the Middle East and could lead to serious developments in the coming days.

Both countries have serious plans on their agendas, while any misstep will have serious repercussions for Ankara-Washington ties.
Ankara is currently entangled with the insurgency of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been a thorn in the side of successive Turkish governments for decades.
Meanwhile, Washington has again raised the issue of the Armenian genocide in the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee. Although previous administrations had raised the issue in the past, this time Washington is seeking certain concessions from Turkey.
The PKK is currently launching military assaults on the Turkish army and has set up safe havens for its fighters in northern Iraq.
However, the U.S. wants northern Iraq to remain stable and peaceful, something which has caused concern among Turkish leaders.
Over the past few years, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party has been very cautious in its approach to U.S. policies in the region.
Yet, a number of factors have chilled Ankara-Washington relations in recent years, such as the fact that the Turkish government and parliament did not support the U.S. attack on Iraq and refused to allow U.S. forces to use Turkish territory as a launch pad for the attack, the Islamist roots of the ruling party, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s condemnations of Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians, the Turkish government’s efforts to join the European Union, and Ankara’s refusal to obey the West’s demands that it revise its laws and judicial system.
Despite high-ranking Turkish officials’ serious objections, the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a draft resolution which recognized the massacre of Armenians in 1915 as a genocide, with 27 members in favor and 21 against.
Hence, in the near future, the U.S. House of Representatives plans to put Resolution 106 to a vote, and since the Armenian Committee of the House of Representatives has over 230 members, the resolution will most likely be approved.
Such a turn of events would have serious repercussions, such as a rise in tension in U.S.-Turkey relations.
However, Turkey has denied the 1915 incident was an act of genocide, claiming that the Armenians were compelled to immigrate due to the situation caused by World War I and that many of them simply died during the journey.
Ankara also insists that during the war, Armenian armed groups rebelled against the Ottoman Empire, conspired with foreign forces, and killed thousands of Turkish villagers.
Armenia claims that the Ottoman Turks massacred 1.5 million Armenians, and many European countries have declared that the event was a genocide according to the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide, although the United Nations itself has never passed a resolution declaring the event a genocide.
The current conflict between Ankara and Washington will most likely cause some thunderstorms in other parts of the Middle East.
Developments in Iraq, the great popularity of the Justice and Development Party compared to other Turkish political parties, the Turkish government’s stances toward the EU and the East, and the country’s flexibility in its relations with the West are all factors that have led to the Armenian genocide issue being raised during the process of the U.S. presidential election.
In addition, Turkey’s threat to attack the PKK and the White House’s influence on the PKK as a potential force for causing tension can seriously affect the U.S. security plans in Iraq.
Unfortunately, Turkey and the United States are currently both seeking concessions rather than addressing the real issues at hand